The Ríos Trilogy by Laura Colmenares Guerra is an extensive project consisting of three chapters exploring the Amazon Basin from local and global perspectives. It offers a perspective on the region that aims to understand how people within traditional Western thinking relate to Amazonia. Through different approaches, the Trilogy attempts to understand the meanings and definitions attributed to this territory. It also sheds light on the history of colonisation and how it has impacted Amazonia, providing insights into the current socio-environmental threats facing the region.

The Ríos Trilogy is composed of three chapters:

CHAPTER N.1: RIVERS // AMAZONIA GEO-LINGUISTICS
Interactive, experimental research tool that allows mapping information related to the Amazons Rainforest on social media.

CHAPTER N.2: SPECULATIVE CARTOGRAPHIES
21 ceramic 3D printed speculative cartographies emerging from the digital hybridisation process of Amazonia-related data and the actual topography of the Amazon basin.

CHAPTER N.3.: R€¥€R$€
Virtual Reality (VR 30') piece that underlines the existing tensions where human, cultural and environmental aspects rub with power, economics and multinational interests in a context of climate stress.

Vernissage Thursday 11 May from 18:00

Opening hours
Wednesday to Sunday 
14:00 - 19:00

Please note that R€¥€R$€ is 30 min. VR piece.
To make sure you can experience it, please book your time slot. 
Reservations

Alex Verhaest presents at Dauwens & Beernaert 'No myths for these countries of the mind', a comprehensive exhibition of four narrative audiovisual series.

The artist has been working in the experimental audiovisual and cinematic field since her debut in 2013. The exhibition shows a selection of a decade of work by the artist including the family drama: Temps Mort, The archive of unattained futures; a body of work that interrogates utopian tropes consisting reuniting silk screen print, closed circuit video and a video game, and Society the artist’s most recent short film. We invite you to discover her outlandish worlds and her consistently surprising ways of telling stories that matter. 

Alex Verhaest

Bleue is a celebration of the sea as a melting pot of biodiversity and part of a whole, our planet, in the era of climate change.

The installation Tipping Point is a sensitive and poetic tribute to those dying glaciers. It stages the (re)birth of an artificial glacier protected by a dome; a drip is feeding the glacier that will grow during the exhibition. The device invites the viewer to attend the birth of this artificial glacier. It is inspired by the “ice stupas” invented by the engineer Sonam Wangchuk and used to fight against water shortages during the summer in Ladakh.

Between a laboratory experiment, an attempt to repair the climate or an ironic collector’s item, the installation confronts us with time and scales; 10.000 years ago, the stabilisation of our cryosphere coincided with the first human traces we found in Mesopotamia, while the fist glaciers are disappearing in 70 years under the pressure of the human activity.

Bleue
Barthélemy Antoine-Loeff

OVERVIEW 02016
Astronauts who were able to observe planet earth from outer space for the first time, all experienced a strong emotional reaction later called the overview effect. A euphoric feeling of oneness with the planet and all living beings as a collective biotope where 'my molecules are yours' and vice versa and individuality seems an illusion.

The work of Lawrence Malstaf is situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. He develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on movement, coincidence, order and chaos, and immersive sensorial rooms for individual visitors. He also creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation, often using the visitor as a co-actor. His projects involve physics and technology as a point of departure or inspiration and as a means for activating installations. 

Topologies of the Real: Techne Shenzhen 2023
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe | Art in Motion: 100 Masterpieces with and through Media (China edition)

Curated by Zhang Ha

At first glance, tele-present wind (2018) by David Bowen could be perceived as a plant-like oddity composed of 126 dried plant branches mounted on metal rods. This undulating symphony is actually orchestrated by the wind’s blow, the intensity of which is captured via anemometers located in Minnesota, USA. This reconstituted mini-forest, acting as the promise of a somewhat disturbing mechanical future, rises and sways in unison, giving the scene a strange aura: that of a still life yet very much alive. The sound of the moving metal rods, like leaves caressed by the breeze, reinforces the organic spirit of the installation. Tele-present wind is in fact a shifted representation of fluid dynamics, the main subject here being the observation of the movement of wind.

“Using intersections between natural and mechanical systems, I produce unique relationships within my sculpture and installations. With robotics, custom software, sensors, tele-presence and data, I construct devices and situations that are set in motion to interface with the physical, virtual and natural world. The devices I construct often play both the roles of observer and creator, providing limited and mechanical perspectives of dynamic situations and living systems. These devices and situations create a dissonance that leads to an incalculable changeable situation resulting in unpredictable outcomes. The phenomenological outputs are collaborations between the natural form or function, the mechanism and the artist."  David Bowen

David Bowen
Kapelica Gallery

PREY is a music theatre production by Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company and Muziektheater Transparant in co-production with Klarafestival and Theater Rotterdam and in collaboration with Ictus ensemble.

The work consists of three solos by three generations of women artists, with music by Annelies Van Parys for ICTUS ensemble. 

A captivating performance that challenges our relationship with nature from a radical ecological perspective.

PREY draws inspiration from Australian ecofeminist Val Plumwood's advocacy for a radical change in our ecological point of view, following a near-death experience from a crocodile attack. Through stunning staging by Kris Verdonck the production presents a landscape where humanity fades into the background, highlighting the tension between humans and the natural environment. Featuring a talented group of artists, including composer Annelies Van Parys, actress Katelijne Damen, singer Anna Clare Hauf and dancer Mooni Van Tichel, PREY delivers a powerful message about accepting our place in the (natural) world.

PREY premiered end of March 2023 at Théâtre Varia (Brussels) as part of the Klarafestival, followed by a performance at Theater Rotterdam. PREY will go on tour next season(s), do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

“Equally important, the stage space now comes to life, as a being with a life and will of its own. From high above the stage, a shapeless, vaguely cylindrical object slowly descends. Gradually it changes shape, looking like a giant, whimsical tent, or perhaps even a tunnel or a cave. The object increasingly dominates the stage, until it almost completely spans it. Finally, it is pulled into the room, far beyond the first rows. Hall and stage thus belong to the same space, the same landscape. In that object you recognize the hand of Verdonck: the artist who creates situations through objects that make us look at the world with different eyes. He changes the familiar environment into a disenchanted reality that we hardly recognize anymore. In this, Verdonck is a late – and very sombre – heir to sublime art. In terms of content, this is in line with Plumwood's plea to stop acting as if the world belongs to us.” Pieter T'Jonck - Pzazz

PREY (trailer)

Transforming an old bunker into a project room with with a glass dome and fire place on the roof. A space for observations under a glass dome.

Here you can experience small exhibitions and activities on city planning, nature conservation and art. Situated at the end of a 200 meter long pier stretching out into the Tromsø fjord, it is an exceptional location to contemplate the sky and the sea, the city and its future.  

With support of KORO, Tromsø Municipality, Sparebanken 1
The project is part of Tromsø Sjøfront Laboratorium and to be opened in Summer 2024.

Lawrence Malstaf
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